In all the faith my innocence could give me, In the best language my true tongue could tell me, And all the broken sighs my sick heart lend me, I sued, and served. Long did I love this lady, Long was my travail, long my trade to win her; With all the duty of my soul I served her, We listened attentively, but felt a doubt about his claims. "We will consider" we said, and waved him towards the tree. At this moment, we heard a short cough, bespeaking impatience, and noted that it came from a portlylooking man, who stepped a little out of the circle. "We did not call thee, friend," we said; but on catching a closer glance, we knew him at once. "Ha! Ben, we had nigh forgotten thee, indeed: Forgive us, forgive us, excellent Ben, and we will quaff sack with thee another time, in a place where the chimes shall reach us not. Well! we suppose we must hear one of thy pleasant songs too: We had half disposed of the crown amongst yon claimants, and lo! thou art here to dispute it sturdily. Well, drink thy cup, and begin." Ben Jonson (for it was he) first read to us a scene from Volpone, and the keen humour shot sideways out of his eyes, as he spoke: then (leaving his tragedies) he proceeded at once to his songs, several of which (" Drink to me only," and others) he sang with a mellow voice. This was part of one of them. Beauties, have ye seen a toy, She that will but now discover “Thou art a wag, Ben," we said; song, and know all that thou canst "Cease now, for we recollect thy urge for thyself. Ben then approached to shake hands with us; but we (feeling some apprehension as to our being of shadowy texture) waved him off. He laughed, and walked towards the oak. "I am"-" Be silent," we interrupted the speaker, "we will call mund Spenser," he replied in a most thee by and by-thy name?" « Ednoured and laurelled Spenser; we melodious voice. "Now, now, howill hear thee now-we pray thee to begin; the crown, we foresee, is lost.' "Oh! not so, my master," said the poet. "There are many worthy ones here, who may well compete with me.' "We wish to listen to thy song, Spenser, begin, begin." "What shall it be?" he said, "Let me recollect." A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady, Of gentlest race that ever shepherd bore, About the grassy banks of Hæmony Did keep his sheep, his little stock and store Full carefully he kept them day and night In fairest fields, and Astrophel he hight. ceed so well," said he, "I must try Know, deeds do die however nobly done, cay, run, Nor may with storming showers be wash'd And with brave plumes doth beat the azure sky, Admired of base born men from far away; Then, whoso will with virtuous deeds assay To mount to heaven, on Pegasus must ride, And with sweet poet's verse be glorified. After this, he gave us a passage or two from his divine Faery Queen, and then, of his own accord, left the circle for other competitors. "Ha! who art thou who hast such a serious look and sober? Thy suit of black is worn; thou lookest starch and stiff, and like a figure carved for a tomb." We said this in a pleasant vein, and the statue answered, "The clerk of Saint Andrews" "Zooks, master Webster, is it thou? give us thy hand-(ah! we forget:) We regard thee as a pillar of the state literary; but thou must get another to recite for thee: thy tones, accustomed to church solemnities, are doubtless nasal and prolonged. We have short time to listen, friend, so e'en give thy book to Raleigh here, and he shall lend thee his courtly voice for once.""Not so, Sir, I must be even mine own expounder, an please you," he said. "It doth not please us, Master Webster," we replied, "but as thou hast said it, and as we know thee to be staunch to thy resolutions, even have thy way, and proceed." He accordingly began his voluntary. The book was the Duchess of Malfy. His voice, which was equal at first, trembled a little, when he came to the following passage: well it might. A brother, who has murdered his sister, speaks: Ferd. Cover her face: mine eyes dazzle: she died young. Bos. I think not so: her infelicity Seemed to have years too many. Ferd. She and I were twins: And should I die this instant, I had lived Her time to a minute. Beheld these rivers in their infancy, And joy'd to see them, when their circled heads Refresh'd the air, and spread the ground with flowers; Rise from your wells, and with your nimble feet Perform that office to this happy pair, Which in these plains you to Alpheus did, When passing hence, thro' many seas unmix'd He gain'd the favour of his Arethuse! Even as Enough! we know ye both, and And now, Fletcher, will we hear a few pleasant like ye," we said. lines from thee." "Shall it be song or speech?" said he. be quiet and soothing ;-something you please, master dramatist, so it between both,--or neither--whatever pleaseth thee, or thy fair muse," we answered-"Here is one that tasteth of wine," he said : God Lyæus ever young, God of youth, let this day here Enter neither care nor fear. "Thanks, Master Webster Fletcher, we would have said, but the fatigues of justice have oppressed us somewhat," we observed. "Thou art tired, my Master," said Fletcher: "Lie down, then, for a short while, and I will try to send thee, for a space, into Elysium."-We sighed or ra ther our phantasma sighed, and drooped its head like a languid poppy. This was Fletcher's charming song :— Care-charming sleep, thou easer of all woes, As this song concluded, we ourselves even felt lulled, and, we believe, reposed us awhile, or forgot ourselves. We were awakened, however, by a noise near us, and turning round, noted a quick pleasant-eyed man, who uttered, with a silver voice, the following stanzas: he seemed reciting them to himself. Let the bird of loudest lay, To whose sound chaste wings away. To this troop come thou not near. Crabbed age and youth Youth like summer morn, He stopped and smiled—“Art thou informed yet?"-" Thou art a merry wag," we answered, "and we like thee, at least once more, let us hear thee.' "Hark, hark," he said, "Dost thou not hear a storm?" " Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou that hast Upon the winds command, bind them in "Those lines are surely "-" "Tis and smiled; «but, hush!said they are not mine," he replied The seaman's whistle Is as a whisper in the ears of death, "But Thaisa has died in child-birth, and thou must hear her husband's sorrow, and his blessing on their child." Now, mild may be thy life, what follows! Thou hast as chiding a nativity, To herald thee from the womb.- No light, no fire; the unfriendly elements Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd in the ooze; And humming water must o'erwhelm thy Lying with simple shells. "Thou hast said enough. Oh, less SHAKSPEARE, who else may strive mighty poet!-Where thou art, peerwith hope?-For us, we dare not award a crown to thee. It is as though the fool of the fable should weigh the merits of the bright Apollo. It is thine without our gift. Look at thy surrounding fellows, who bend them in reverence before thee. We too must bow our knee." He stooped to raise us, but the touch of his hand seemed like an electric shock, and we-awoke. -- "And what is the meaning or end of the dream? Kind reader, if thou art pleased with our relation, or with the poets whom we have cited, our end is answered: it hath no hidden purpose. We cover not our there is no concealed drug in the sugar morals with allegory or fiction ;which we proffer to thee. Our object was to please thee. Let us hope that we have not been writing altogether without success. THETA. LIVING AUTHORS. No. V. CRABBE. THE object of Mr. Crabbe's writings seems to be, to show what an unpoetical world we live in: or rather, perhaps, the very reverse of this conclusion might be drawn from them; for it might be said, that if this is poetry, there is nothing but poetry in the world. Our author's style might be cited as an answer to Audrey's inquiry, "Is poetry a true thing?" If the most feigning poetry is the truest, Mr. Crabbe is of all poets the least poetical. There are here no ornaments, no flights of fancy, no illusions of sentiment, no tinsel of words. His song is one sad reality, one unraised, unvaried note of unavailing woe. Literal fidelity serves him in the place of invention; he assumes importance by a number of petty details; he rivets attention by being prolix. He not only deals in incessant matters of fact, but in matters of fact of the most familiar, the least animating, and most unpleasant kind; but he relies for the effect of novelty on the microscopic minuteness with which he dissects the most trivial objects-and, for the interest he excites on the unshrinking determination with which he handles the most painful. His poetry has an official and professional air. He is called out to cases of difficult births, of fractured limbs, or breaches of the peace; and makes out a parish register of accidents and offences. He takes the most trite, the most gross and obvious, and revolting part of nature, for the subject of his elaborate descriptions; but it is nature still, and Nature is a great and mighty goddess. "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." It is well for the reverend author that it is so. Individuality is, in his theory, the only definition of poetry. Whatever is, he hitches into rhyme. Whoever makes an exact image of any thing on the earth below, however deformed or insignificant, according to him, must succeed and he has succeeded. Mr. Crabbe is one of the most popular and admired of our living writers. That he is so, can be accounted for on no other principle than the strong ties that bind us to the world about us, and our involuntary yearnings after whatever in any manner powerfully and directly reminds us of it. HisMuse is not one of the daughters of Memory, but the old toothless mumbling dame herself, doling out the gossip and scandal of the neighbourhood, recounting, totidem verbis et literis, what happens in every place in the kingdom every hour in the year, and fastening always on the worst as the most palatable morsels. But she is a circumstantial old lady, communicative, scrupulous, leaving nothing to the imagination, harping on the smallest grievances, a village oracle and critic, most veritable, most identical, bringing us acquainted with persons and things just as they happened, and giving us a local interest in all she knows and tells. The springs of Helicon are, in general, supposed to be a living stream, bubbling and sparkling, and making sweet music as it flows; but Mr. Crabbe's fountain of the Muses is a stagnant pool, dull, motionless, choked up with weeds and corruption; it reflects no light from heaven, it emits no cheerful sound:-his Pegasus has not floating wings, but feet, cloven feet that scorn the low ground they tread upon;-no flowers of love, of hope, or joy spring here, or they bloom only to wither in a moment ;—our poet's verse does not put a spirit of youth in every thing, but a spirit of fear, despondency, and decay; it is not an electric spark to kindle and expand, but acts like the torpedotouch to deaden and contract: it lends no rainbow tints to fancy, it aids no soothing feelings in the heart, it gladdens no prospect, it stirs no wish; in its view the current of life runs slow, dull, cold, dispirited, halfunderground, muddy and clogged with all creeping things. The world is one vast infirmary; the hill of Parnassus is a penitentiary; to read him is a penance; yet we read on! Mr. Crabbe is a fascinating writer. He contrives to turn diseases to commodities," and makes a virtue of necessity. He puts us out of conceit with this world, which perhaps a severe divine should do; yet does not, as a charitable divine ought, point to another. His morbid feelings droop and cling to the earth; grovel, where they should soar; and throw a dead weight on every aspiration of the soul after the good or beautiful. By degrees, we submit and are reconciled to our fate, like patients to a physician, or prisoners in the condemned cell. We can only explain this by saying, as we said before, that Mr. Crabbe gives us one part of nature, the mean, the little, the disgusting, the distressing; that he does this thoroughly, with the hand of a master; and we forgive all the rest! Mr. Crabbe's first poems were published so long ago as the year 1782, and received the approbation of Dr. Johnson only a little before he died. This was a testimony from an enemy, for Dr. Johnson was not an admirer of the simple in style, or minute in description. Still he was an acute, strong-minded man, and could see truth, when it was presented to him, even through the mist of his preju dices and his theories. There was something in Mr. Crabbe's intricate points that did not, after all, so ill accord with the Doctor's purblind vision; and he knew quite enough of the petty ills of life to judge of the merit of our poet's descriptions, though he himself chose to slur them over in high-sounding dogmas or general invectives. Mr. Crabbe's earliest poem of the Village was recommended to the notice of Dr. Johnson by Sir Joshua Reynolds; and we cannot help thinking that a taste for that sort of poetry, which leans for support on the truth and fidelity of its imitations of nature, began to display itself much about the time, and, in a good measure, in consequence of the direction of the public taste to the subject of painting. Book-learning, the accumulation of wordy commonplaces, the gaudy pretensions of poetical diction, had enfeebled and perverted our eye for nature: the study of the fine arts, which came into fashion about forty years ago, and was then first considered as a polite accomplishment, would tend imperceptibly to restore it. Painting is essentially an imitative art; it cannot subsist for a moment on empty generalities: the critic, therefore, who has been used to this sort of Mr. Crabbe's great fault is certainly that he is a sickly, a querulous, |